Novel What's Your Writing Process?

I am an oldschool writer. I write all my stuff on a notebook with pen. I write my whole chapter by hand and when finish I pass it to my computer. While I'm passing, I edit. I can erase, add, and analyze the dialogues.

Another thing that helps me writing is to have clear idea of my story. I always think of the beginning, the climax and the ending. The rest you simply fill out.

 

I don't really have a process, but if I feel an idea coming along, I'll write out some things in Notepad so I don't lose the thought. Then after a while, I'll expand on those few bullet points.

 

I don't really have any sort of process. I might sound like a nutcase here, but I tend to immerse myself so completely in whatever world I'm creating that I almost become my characters, and they tell me their story. Then it's just a matter of writing it down.

 

Hmmm...this is an interesting thread to read. So many different styles.

I usually write when I'm inspired, just dive in, no outlining, no forethought really...just let my ideas flow from brain to fingers...and when I'm starting to feel as if it's not flowing anymore, I go back and proofread. Usually when I return to what I've written, and start reading the story, and fixing little things here and there, it ends up inspiring me again by the time I get to where I left off. This method has always worked for me.

 

Ohh! and I always draw out a map, and whatnot...I'm a fantasy writer, so my work usually involves other worlds...so I plot the character's journey on a hand made map as they go. And I keep a running list of all the characters, and some of their attributes to draw from as I write, so I don't have to go digging through the pages of work if I forget a name, or something they said or did.

 

I sit my butt down and write. That's about it.

 

I've flip-flopped between pantsing and extensive planning. I "completed" my first novella ever when I was fifteen years old, at about 127 pages. I "finished" it because I felt like the whole thing had turned into a hot mess, and I just wanted to have done with it (I wrote in a quick ending that at least made some sense so I could rid myself of the beast in a satisfactory manner). I did that one more time, and ended up with a 203-page hot mess (unfinished to date, however), so from there on I tried to plan my stories, characters, worlds, and whatever else well in advance of writing the first actual manuscript word.

That extensive planning, I've found, has done the opposite and stifled me. I haven't written a story that broke fifty pages in about half a decade, and I've realized it's because I actually get nervous while writing, because I'm afraid I'll deviate from "the plan." So with my latest project I'm trying a new approach: pantsing with incremental and humble goal-setting. My current 2000 word story started as a character sketch, and if it stays so, I will stop. If I find I can continue, I'll expand it to a short story. I'll keep adding (albeit from a pantsed approach) until I feel like it's finished. No aspirations toward noveldom (no, not a real word), no deliberate attempts to cut it off; the story will tell me when it's done.

 

I keep a big, fat notebook where I scribble my ideas. General outlines of stories, specific events that I want to incorporate, character profiles, imagery, research...

I used to be a very haphazard writer, but I found that I fell into a lot of holes with that approach. The result was confusion because my goals weren't clear. So then I started to plan stories the same way I plan essays. I think of structure, the best way to order events, what I want the overall shape and feel of the story to be. Most importantly, I spend lots of time just thinking about it without writing anything (unless I hit on something I think is particularly important).

But I try not to get too caught up in my own web. Often I rework plans before they even make it onto the page, or when I'm actually writing I find a new direction that fits better. And I do still sometimes just sit down with a vague idea and write away to my heart's content. Those are more writing exercises, I suppose, to keep things loose and the ideas free flowing.

 

My writing process is pretty chaotic. Whenever I come up with an idea I'll immediately put it down in whatever format is closest to hand at the time, so I've got lots of Word documents, lots of notebooks and lots of notepad files on my phone. Sometimes I'll come up with a great line of dialogue or description of a scene for a section of a story that I haven't even started writing yet. If the inspiration takes me, I write it down, regardless of where it fits into the story.

I love planning out whole story arcs in one go too. In some instances I've got a lot of detailed outlines for entire novels/series' all written down.

Putting it all into some sort of cohesive piece of work is the challenging part.

 

if i have an idea, i let it flow on the page, if i feel ive exhausted it, i shelve it, if i think i could continue it, i keep at it until it is its own machine, i have 1 currently as a machine rolling along, one which could become a machine if i put my mind to it and a fair few sparks some i may add to later if something comes to me, but generally they dont get touched

 

"3 Keys How To Write A Book With Ease"

1. KNOW YOUR READER- traditionally, we are writing a book because we have some personal ideas in mind and want to share it with others. We want to share our own ideas, experiences to everybody without thinking if is it what our readers wants, if that is what they need? we focus n ourselves and forgetting the purpose why we are writing and it is for our readers.
2. CREATE A STRUCTURE-make an outline for your book so it would be so easy for you to edit or add any changes.
3. FILL IN THE BLANKS- " the road to someday will leads to a town of nowhere". We always say that I want to write a book someday, if I am ready enough to do it, etc and this will leads us to nowhere. if you want to write a book then start it NOW. this fill in the blanks is somewhat try to imagine yourself as the readers, ask yourself a questions what you want to know, what are your expectations from a book, questions that you think will probably the one that your readers are asking, etc and when you can answer it, you are now aware what are the needs of your readers.

you can check this link:
http://www.howtowriteabookthatsellsitself.com/

 

My process for poetry:

1) Read poems, preferably in a similar style to that in which I intend to write.
2) Turn on fitting music (can fit in terms of lyrics, instrumentals, or both)
3) Write, even if it sucks. A lot of my best poems have come from bad first drafts.
4) Revise

 

Ooh I love this topic! I have had problems with my writing process for quite sometime. I used to write a lot of fan fiction that I rarely managed to finish and now I know why: I dive in to it way too quickly. I never or barely mulled about the idea. My latest project is very different. It also gives me a very different feeling.
It started of in an odd way. A friend and I decided to write something together (a fan fiction). I wrote the very first part, she the second, I the third and so on. But we never talked about what was going to happen. We went with the flow. Because we had to wait on each other to write, I started to think where I wanted this story to go. We are still writing this story (but we started to plot together) and decided as soon as it it finished, to rewrite it wholly and properly so it will be an original story. I think this little experiment has taught me a lot. I have to think more before starting. Be less impulsive. I know that I am a discovery writer. I cannot work with whole characters spreads before I start to write. I have to meet my characters and get to know them while I write. I normally have the general idea of the story in my head, but sometimes parts have to be changed so it will fit better with a new idea I have gotten during the writing process.
I found I like writing this way. It's a bit chaotic but for me very fun and satisfactory.

 

Let me begin with some history. The first book I ever wrote had virtually no planning. I got an idea and just wrote. And wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I had maybe two pieces of paper that I scribbled notes on so I could be consistent with things, particularly names. I thought it was a waste of my time writing things that my audience would never see so I vehemently avoided non-manuscript texts. When I was done, there was little revision. I essentially (self-) published a polished first draft. I regret this now but what's done is done. What more could I ask of a 19 year old me? The plot was shallow, the characters were shallow, history was vague at best. I never even really had a specific setting (no place names were ever mentioned, except so-and-so's base of operations or whatever). There were a lot of nonsensical elements because of my lack of non-manuscript text and planning. I will never, ever advocate this approach to writing (at least with novels).

I am currently working on another book. I began with an idea. It was merely an image in my head, a scenario I wanted to play with. I wracked my brain for a while trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it. Eventually I got myself a spiral notebook and started committing things to paper. I wrote down the names of my main characters and main supporting characters. I wrote out basic details, like their general appearance, their class (fighter, mage, etc.), and what gods they worshipped. I then wrote out a massive five-page outline of the story I wanted to write. When I was done, I realized how cliché the whole thing was and more or less scrapped it. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the chronology of what follows because this was nearly four years ago. I wrote out page-long histories of my characters with more detail on their appearance, history, family, etc. I got to know them through this as well as got to know how the characters knew one another. I then drew a map of the land I would be working with and started writing cultural and (kindergarten) linguistic information about the different countries and races. I redid the plot outline at some point, in greater detail and with WAY LESS cliché stuff. I eventually created a calendar and a map key and had to go back through my outline, figuring distances and the times and dates of different occurrences. At some point I expanded considerably on cultural information and found I was displeased with the plot outline I had and expanded on it. There are so many loose pages and crossed out things in that notebook now, it's crazy! Totally worth it, though. I continued to work on cultural stuff and tried to write out how different things like magic worked. There was a lot of jumping around. All in all, this entire process lasted about nine months. At that point I ran out of things to do other than start writing. Though I am still working on this book, I continue to run into things that prompt me to work on history and culture and I occasionally find myself more interested in reading than writing so I just pick a spot and start reading and editing. Of course, this can't really be done anymore because so much has changed with history, plot, and characters that I just need to comb out the problems from the beginning of the manuscript. I still have several characters I need to weave into the entire thing and they haven't even been created yet. Three years later, I still have so much to do...

Well, I'm sure that was excruciatingly long. My apologies. I hope there's something helpful in the above mess.

 

I have been working on my novel, on and off, for about fifteen years, I think. I am now on the third draft, which I hope to complete as the first two drafts were incomplete. It started out as a simple fan fiction story based on the 1985 anime cartoon Robotech, which I have always been a huge fan of and which told the story of three different alien races invading earth over a 40 year period. My story was set in the aftermath of the third invasion, with the earth more or less a wasteland. After completing about 150 hand-written A4 pages, I decided to scrap the idea of it being fan fiction and to make it my own story. I kept the basic theme and plot, with it set in a post-apocalyptic USA, but removed the alien angle and wrote it as a civil war story, using an electronic typewriter. Once again, I made it to around 150 pages before deciding to start again. My reason was that I felt limited by having it set in the USA, and made the choice to have it set in a completely fictional world, but one similar to our own. Even though I did not complete this second draft, I was happy with much of it in regards to the plot and knew that I could use it for the third draft.

That was about eleven years ago when I was at that point. I started from the beginning again and created an alternate reality, the story being set in a coastal nation called Delmabia, which has had a long history of conflict between different ideological groups, specifically the Barish Nerin and the Lafayettians, aswell as the Anvarelians, who migrated to the continent some 260 years before the story began but are now the dominant power. I did a correspondence course with the Australian College of Journalism around that time called How to Write a Best Seller, which really helped with my enthusiasm and determination. I made many notes and plot outlines and character profiles, aswell as a map of the continent which I still have but which is so old that I recently had to tape it together and photocopy it as the piece of paper had split into four quarters. I made good progress with this draft but after a while, life got in the way. I got married and became a stepfather, and there was not as much time available to write. I put the novel aside and more or less forgot about it.

When I got back into writing in '06, it was in the field of fictional sports journalism, boxing and baseball specifically. Using the simulation PC games Out of the Park Baseball and Title Bout Championship Boxing, I created sports stories that were presented as newspaper and internet reports and magazine articles. These were posted on the website www.ootpdevelopments.com. Here is a link to one of the stories I created, to give you an idea. http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/tbcb-inside-ropes/175105-greatest-prize-sports.html

I enjoyed doing these sports stories for quite a while, even though I knew there was no future for them in regards to being published works. About a year ago, though, I decided that I needed to get back to my novel and actually finish the thing. I had some trouble getting back into it at first and couldn't quite decide on the direction I wanted to go with it. I had bits and pieces of it written: early chapters, later chapters, an outline of the complete plot, but was still having trouble getting into it. That changed at the beginning of this year when I decided to direct all of my creative energies towards it. I looked over what I had and decided the best course of action was to revise the opening chapters a bit and get it to a point where the opening eight or nine chapters were all complete to my satisfaction. I had four chapters that were all set in the same location (which is the main focus of the story) that I was more or less happy with, but had to expand on this and introduce the other locations and characters. This involved writing four other completely new chapters from scratch, which I have now done. During the last week I completed chapter nine of the story, which takes it through to the 110-page mark when printed out as 37 lines per A4 page. My plan is to have the story be around about 300 pages and 30 chapters, so along with about three chapters that I had written years ago from further along in the story, I'm currently about 40% of the way to having it written.

I am hoping to have it all completed by the end of the year. In regards to my writing process since getting back into it recently, quite a bit of it has been done with a pen and notepad. This has mostly been taking notes about certain scenes, bits of dialogue and ideas for further in the story. From there I sit down with my laptop and make sense of the notes as I write the story in Word. Just recently, I took a trip into the city of Sydney on the train and during the ride I wrote out the framework of a conversation between two characters that became chapter nine, which I was quite happy with. I still have the older drafts of the story plus all my old notes, which I will be able to draw upon if needed. One thing I find, though, is that I'm not yet capable of just sitting in front of the computer and writing. There have been times when I've done this, literally forcing myself to try to write and nothing comes out. I find that if I'm not in the mood, or not inspired, it won't work.

 

I think, you just have to feel how it is gonna working out and stay with that way. I planing a lot, even draw my ideas, because i like to see it visual. It gives me much more confidence when i start to write, without it, I feel like i would loose myself in the story. I heard some writers are just go with the flow, i think Stephen King is also like that, i think they are lucky, but I can't do it.

 

I generally get my creativity flowing by listening to audio-books non-stop for a couple of days. Then after a few days of that, while not listening to anything my thoughts will follow a narrative voice pattern, and it seems like my mind will try and make up for the sudden lack of storytelling input by coming up with creative narratives. I keep a notebook of these creative writing sessions that I then develop further later.

 

I generally follow following steps
1- Topic based research
2- Writing down important points
3-Arranging points in systematic way
4- Writing on each point
5- proof reading

 

I come up with the basic idea. Start imagining it, the feel. Dramatic, scary, funny. See my characters in my head and hear their voices.

I try and figure out where I want to start and where I want to end. Like if it's a murder mystery, I need to know the motive and the killer when I start.

Then I start the see the scenes in my head.

Finally with a notebook or on a word doc, I'll start an outline. I rewrite it as I flesh it out. Once I know what the story flow is, the main plot points, I'll start writing it.

 

i do tend to just follow the flow of my work normally, because, it knows better than i do where it wants to end up. Yes i do treat my work as a separate entity to myself, a beast of creation, but that is because i feel that sometimes its not the ideas right on top of your mind that are the best ones, they may be good, but you have to allow your fingers typing (or in mine and several others cases hands writing) to get everything out and let the secret stories you hold tell themselves.

 

I think it is more important to know what you want to say than what you want to write. If you want to write a story, then learn what a story is. Once you have that, the writing part is easy, and the process will be secondary.

 

I often just start writing. I've found that the ideas flow once I'm in "the zone". If I get stuck on a plot device I usually let it sit or mull it over for a while. Sometimes it sits for a while so I can come back and look at it fresh. I do get overwhelmed by a lot of ideas at once and I've found that setting up a skeleton structure for my story can be nice to not only organize my thoughts but also give structure to what i'm writing. I end up being less stuck on things if I have points to write towards. That being said I have regularly changed and altered both the skeleton and writing in general as I continue the process. Every time i read what i've written I come up with more ideas and change the future parts of my book. I think just sitting down and writing is the best answer to all of it though.

 

I just kind of go head first into the process and start writing whatever it is I'm writing. My outline is already mapped out in my head, so if there's any written outline from me it's minimal.

 

Something I'm thinking of toying with, at least for the rough draft, is writing scenes at a time. They don't have to be in the order they'll end up being in when the book is finished.

 

I say follow the ones who actually achieved success with the masses in regard to selling their works. And here i'm only talking about fantasy books. So i used to look up to old Sci-fi writers as role models. But Asimov does not fly anymore (no offense meant) - too complicated. What do people want? Simple stuff that will relax them. Who do they want? Why, J.K. Rowling.

I used to despise her. I could not believe such flat, un-scientific simplicity could make a dime. I was proven wrong. Now i want to be like her. I had to rewrite my whole book to make it sound as simple as her stuff.

I use the approach of four codes, based on the fact that people only want to hear\read about
mystery\suspense, fearlul things, drama and action.

So, here it is. You write literally anything you want as long as you keep the reader in anticipation of a secret revealed, scary stuff happening or about to happen, love\drama unraveling in front of his eyes, or good old action. Sounds like a cliche? It is. But it still works. So, why not work it?